The Unseen Movie Review: Punisher: War Zone

brettjmuDec 4th, 2008 - 14:53:06

Unfortunately for Marvel, this one is not on them. The Punisher is one of the many properties that they 'sold off' when they were dealing w/ bankruptcy in the '90's, along with every other character they owned. Marvel currently has very little say in ANY of their character films outside of Iron Man, Hulk, Capt America, and Thor. Just as Marvel would NEVER had killed off Cyclops in the X-films or made Sandman such a sappy pansy in Spider-Man 3, Marvel would never have portrayed the Punisher with any of the actors, or any of the depictions that he has been portrayed in up until now. I do believe Marvel would have gone the Ennis/Bradstreet MAX route of creating the Punisher. But this film, albeit the best of the 3, still would not live up to Marvel alone's standards. Since FOX owns the X-characters and Sony the Spider-Man universe for pretty much the rest of eternity, we may never see what we truly want to from these franchises. But when characters like the Avengers, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Cap, and even Namor, Black Panther, Fantastic Four, Luke Cage, and Doc Strange, when these cycle back to Marvel ownership, watch out.

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Philip PenroseDec 14th, 2008 - 16:36:50

I went to see 'Punisher: War Zone and was caught in an awkward place between dismay and awe. Ray Stevenson was actually pretty damn good. But Dominic West really sunk the boat. I find his failure on par with Tommy Lee Jones' 'Two-Face' from 1995's 'Batman Forever'. That bad. /8O

When it comes to a Punisher movie I take certain elements into consideration:

1.) The person portraying the Punisher.
2.) The villian (Who I've always maintained should've been Jigsaw)
3.) The story
4.) The gore (That's the Punisher's 'thing', sorry. He doesn't fly, have super strength, or invincibility. He kills criminals. Brutally.)
5.) The climax


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For the 1989 film:
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Forget the scale, 1 thru 5: It just plain sucked.

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For the 2004 film:
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Punisher-1.)Pass (Jane did a good job. The movie was just wrong.)
Villain--2.)Fail (No Jigsaw? Really? Travolta? As? Travolta? WTF.)
Story----3.)Fail ( Just flat over all. Certain elements were right on:
the Russian, Harry Heck! The popsicle torture
scene! BUT! Much was wrong (Tampa?!?!,Travolta, Rebeca
Romain 'not so'Stamos-ed!)
Gore-----4.)Fail (Not enough blood and the Punisher spared certain
criminals, which he doesn't do. If your a criminal and known
to the Punisher, RUN.)
Climax---5.)Pass (Sorry, I'm a bit of a gun guy and loved the 'show down'
ending, not to mention Travolta's getting set on fire and
blown up. After his yawn inspiring performance I needed
that!lol)

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For the 2008 film:
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1.)Pass (Stevenson had the humanity and the rage.)
2.)Fail (AND the villain was finally Jigsaw! Way to screw that up West!!)
3.)Pass (I found the accidental killing of the under cover FBI agent an interesting story element.)
4.)Hella Pass! (The gore was jaw dropping, yet JUST comic enough to take the hardcore 'SAW one' edge off.
5.)Fail (Sadly the ending was 'basic Hollywood formula comic movie ending'. Jigsaw is killed (despite his rare status as a recurring Punisher villain) and Microchip as well (Who I was hoping would take the comic book arc and eventually force Frank to kill him, which I'll give that Wayne Knight would have been perfect for. I mean from Jurassic Park to Seinfeld, he makes you want to see bad things happen to him! lol)

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